of sunshine in Australia, I guess,’ was all he said. His eyes narrowed. She was grateful for the semi-public forum they found themselves in so he didn’t press for details. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care what she’d been doing with her life since she’d left him.
The placement of the chairs around the table was close—perhaps because they’d had to accommodate her as an extra guest. But it meant she was sitting very close to Cristos. Too close. Whatever she did—reach for condiments, lean aside to give access to the waiters—meant her shoulder brushed against his arm, his thigh nudged hers. She was as aware of the slightest contact as if there were a jolt of current connecting them. But it would appear too obvious to jump back from the contact.
She found the proximity disconcerting. Cristos seemed to take it in his stride. In front of a table of people he knew well, he played the role of husband with aplomb, always taking pains to include her in the conversation. Perhaps more so because he must be aware the other guests were dying to know the truth about the sudden reappearance of his English wife.
But this whole fake reunion thing was messing with her head. Particularly disconcerting had been her reaction to his kiss back at the chapel. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. How could she have reacted like that when she was so determined to put him in her past?
The physical attraction between them when they’d met had been instant and magnetic. In the first blissful months of their marriage they had not been able to get enough of each other. Even when things had started to sour as he’d gone from business student to the hot man of the moment, any argument had ended up in bed. But physical attraction was not enough. Great sex was not enough.
She’d been so naïve when she’d met him. Maybe she’d been not just old-fashioned but misguided to insist on staying a virgin until marriage. Then she might not have rushed into marriage. That overwhelming hunger for him had blinded her to other issues that had in the end unravelled. Like trust. And honesty.
Right now she had to be honest with herself—she needed to fight that physical attraction so she could free herself from him and move on. Sitting so close to him at the table for lunch, she was preternaturally aware of him—every nuance in his expression, every shift in his body. He had once been her world.
It wasn’t just his extraordinary good looks that were so compelling. It was also his effortless personal charisma. Switching between Greek and English, he had the entire table laughing at his story about a fishing expedition gone wrong. Yet when he turned to her, to translate a Greek phrase, his green eyes bright with laughter, it was as if she were the only person in the room who was of any importance to him. Once she had believed that to be true—before she’d had to share him with the rest of the world.
She forced a smile in response. He would know she was faking it but she hoped the others wouldn’t. This was Dell and Alex’s day and not to be marred by any antagonism between her and Cristos.
After the main course had been served, the guests on either side of both her and Cristos excused themselves from the table; those opposite were engrossed in conversation. Cristos picked up her left hand. ‘You still wear your wedding and engagement rings,’ he said in a low voice meant only for her.
‘Just to transport them safely back to you,’ she said. ‘They’re safer on my finger than in my handbag. I’ll give them back to you when we say goodbye.’
His face tightened, all traces of his earlier good humour extinguished. He released her hand. ‘There is no need for that. The rings are yours.’
‘What use are they to me?’ she said. ‘I’ll never wear them again. And I don’t want to be reminded of our marriage. I want to put all that behind me.’ She had been in the nebulous state of being separated for too long. Not a wife, yet not single either.
He swore in Greek under his breath. Hurt? Pain? Anger? It certainly didn’t sound like relief. She had agreed with Cristos not to disrupt the wedding renewal celebration. Now that she’d got to know Dell and Alex a little better she was glad she had stayed. But at what cost to her? And perhaps also to Cristos? She should never have come here.
‘Did you wear your rings in Australia?’ he asked abruptly.
She glanced down at the simple sapphire and diamond cluster set in white gold, the matching plain band. The stones in the engagement ring were tiny. When they’d got engaged Cristos couldn’t afford anything more than a ring from a chain of high-street jewellers. But she’d thought it was beautiful and Cristos had declared the stone was nowhere nearly as beautiful as the colour of her eyes. Later, when the money from his new career had started to flow, he’d wanted to buy her a more expensive ring but she’d refused. She’d cherished that ring. It had symbolised everything good about their love. If he wouldn’t take it back she would give it away.
‘No. I didn’t wear my rings in Sydney. And I didn’t go by my married name either. I used my maiden name, Hayley Clements. It was easier than explaining a Greek surname when I so obviously didn’t look Greek.’
Cristos slammed his right hand, where he wore his simple gold wedding band in the Greek tradition, on the table. ‘I have never taken mine off,’ he said.
Hayley swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. ‘You took it off many times for your modelling shoots.’
‘I was playing a role when I was working. Most often that role was not of a married man. I could not be seen to be wearing a wedding ring.’
‘I understood that. Of course I did. But then you started to leave it off all the time.’
‘You know why,’ he said, tight-lipped. He shifted in his seat. This wedding-ring thing had become an issue in their short marriage. One that had festered with her in their time apart.
‘Because it was seen as a disadvantage to your career to be married. A wife was a hindrance. “It would be better for your fans—both female and male—if you were seen to be single.” Don’t you remember your agent saying that?’ She hadn’t meant to blurt that out. She’d been determined not to speak of their mutual past. No recriminations. No blame. Just a clean cut.
He frowned. ‘Of course I remember. We discussed it at the time—over and over. Then we agreed to take my agent’s advice. We needed the money too much to argue with him.’
She looked down at the table. Smoothed a barely visible crease in the white tablecloth. When she’d got engaged to Cristos her parents had cut off her allowance, stopped the rent on her accommodation. They’d both been students. To get extra money, he’d tutored kids studying Greek, she’d taught dancing. Neither pursuit had been lucrative. They’d struggled.
‘The idea was that we would still be together but not acknowledged as husband and wife,’ she said. That still stung—though it had made sense at the time and she’d gone into it with eyes well and truly open. ‘A girlfriend was acceptable. She was dispensable. That gave your fans hope that one day in their fantasies they might win you. The presence of a real-life wife ruined the fantasy.’
‘That’s how it was supposed to work,’ he said. ‘We both agreed I would take my wedding band off when I was in public. Then put it back on in private when I came home to you.’
Hayley couldn’t keep the sadness from her voice as she looked back up at him. ‘Until there were more and more times when you didn’t come home. When you were on shoots all over Europe. Then exotic, far-flung places like Morocco and Africa.’
‘Those jobs were the most lucrative,’
